"Stop this war!"
A little more than five months after 9-11, on February 17, 2002, Rep.
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) delivered a speech, "A Prayer for America," to
the
Southern California chapter of Americans for Democratic Action.
He
asserted the need to "challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act" and
warned
that the United States stood "upon the threshold of a permanent war
economy."
The speech resonated through progressive circles, generating a
groundswell
of support, and almost exactly a year later, on February 18, 2003, the
Cleveland congressman filed papers to establish a presidential
exploratory
committee.

Kucinich has emerged as the peace candidate. In
July 2001
he introduced a bill in Congress to establish a Department of
Peace.
On October 10, 2002, he led 126 of 208 Democrats in voting against the
Iraq war resolution. And on April 1, 2003, as the war in Iraq
continued
for its second week, he took to the floor of the House to urge his
colleagues,
"Stop the war now."

Kucinich is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus,
which
is the largest caucus of Democrats in the House. He advocates
universal
health care, calling for "a new Medicare, Part E (for Everyone) which
will
relieve the suffering and uncertainty of 44,000,000 Americans who
currently
have no health coverage and the economic pain of those who are paying
exorbitant
rates for their health insurance." He has warned against the
potentially
crippling effects of America's trade deficit, and states, "I will
cancel
NAFTA and the WTO. The only trade agreements we will enter into
will
be bilateral trade agreements where countries agree to buy as much from
the U.S. as they sell to us." Kucinich has authored legislation
to
regulate genetically engineered food.

Cleveland Chic
Kucinich's service in the Congress marks a second act in his political
career. In 1977 he was elected mayor of Cleveland. The "boy
mayor" had a rough couple of years as he fought to prevent the
municipally
owned Muny Light from being taken over. He survived a recall but
was defeated in his bid for re-election. Thereafter, he went out
West, taking a variety of jobs in five different states, until in 1994
he was elected to the Ohio Senate. Two years later he won a seat
in the U.S. Congress. Now, with his eyes on the White House,
Kucinich
vows, "We will replace Crawford Texas' square dancing, tractor pulls
and
pork rinds with Cleveland's polka, bowling and kielbasa.
Cleveland,
the new face of America. Kucinich.US. Think about
it."

"A Candidate Who Speaks to the
Activists"
In the opening months of the campaign Kucinich appears to have been
relegated to second tier status whether because of his limited national
recognition, his late start, his less than top tier fundraising
prospects,
or concerns about electability. But Kucinich is demonstrating
cross
party appeal. In a March 18, 2003 e-mail update Dr. John Hagelin,
the Natural Law Party's three-time presidential candidate, noted that
Kucinich
and he have worked "very closely together" on a number of issues.
Hagelin stated, "I strongly support Rep. Kucinich in his bid for the
presidency."
Kucinich's holistic approach--he is one of few vegans in Congress--is
also
very much in synchrony with Green Party views. Indeed, in Iowa
the
Green Party's candidate for Secretary of Agriculture in 2002, Brian
Depew,
signed on to work for Kucinich.

David Lamb.
"Dennis
Kucinich: The Onetime Boy Mayor of Cleveland Is Still a Maverick After
All These Years and Proudly Wears the Liberal Label." Los Angeles
Times. July 13, 2003. [Eighth in weekly series].

http://www.draftkucinich.com(updated April 2005)
A Draft Kucinich site
appeared before Kucinich launched his campaign. The site was ostensibly
by Mike Swickey of Oklahoma City. Swickey had run a political
site, swickey.com, for a number of years. In a March 21, 2005
e-mail Swickey wrote to correct the record:

"I
am a privacy consultant in Oklahoma City and an old political
enemy thought it would be cute to run this Kucinich site under my
name. He hacked my swickey.com site and changed my "About Mike" page
and ran the draftkucinich site using my name! All of this
happened for quite some time before I even knew this was going on. I
actually found out about this quite sometime ago when someone called
and told me that they had read an Associated Press story about the
Kucinich site and it had quotes, ostensibly, from me! It was
not me and was all a big practical joke. The site was, in fact, a true
"Draft Kucinich" site. The only thing amiss was the name of the person
doing the pushing of Kucinich. He claimed to be me, said he was a
privacy consultant in Oklahoma City and, well, let's just say it was a
pretty clever trick. One that has actually proved to be quite useful to
me in my talks on social engineering and ID theft. I address various
security and privacy groups and use my experience as an example of "ID
theft" that was used for purposes other than financial gain. Much of
the information this individual obtained, he got by using clever social
engineering with my ISP, web hosting service, among other things."